


Essential as Sunlight

by thedevilchicken



Category: Flood (2007)
Genre: Coping, Dreams, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9696839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: When Sam dreams, it's raining.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



> _Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight._ \- Diane Ackerman

When Sam dreams, it's raining. 

When she dreams, she's soaked right down to the skin and she's so cold she doesn't really know how not to shiver. Her sopping wet hair's all caught up in the wind so it lashes at her face and there's rain stinging in her eyes but that's not why she can't see him. It's not the dark, either. He's under the water. 

She knows he's under the water because she watched him jump in before she even thought to try to stop him, and she doesn't know if he'll ever come back up again. She doesn't know if she'll ever see him again or not and if he dies down there under the water that's swirling with the current and dancing with the pouring rain so much it almost seems like something living, she can't be sure they'll ever even find his body. Maybe when the flood subsides he'll be swept right out to sea with it. Maybe she should have said goodbye before he jumped, but he probably wouldn't have let her. 

When she dreams, sometimes he comes back and sometimes he doesn't and she's never quite sure which one it will be. She waits, her knuckles white on the rail, and when she wakes it's either knowing that he's gone or at that moment, that terrifying moment when his hand breaks the surface of the water that's already broken by the rain, and she knows that she can't reach him. When she dreams, she never sees his face. When she dreams, he's always out of reach.

But, when she wakes, he's right there beside her. 

Rob dreams, too - they've shared a bed often enough since that day now for her to know it. When he dreams, it's almost violent; he can't stay still, he can't stay quiet, he calls her name like it's the last thing in life he's got left to do, and so she wraps her arms around him and she says, _I'm here. It's okay, I'm here_. Sometimes he wakes and sometimes he doesn't but either way, he always smiles. 

When they're both awake in bed at night, when he's talking about that day again because, she thinks, they both have to just so they can somehow stay sane, she rests her head on his shoulder and she holds his hand and he smiles even though she knows it must still hurt him. He found his dad that day just to lose him again, so it _must_ still hurt. It hurts her, too, to think about the choices Leonard made.

When they're both awake, she wraps her arms around him and she tells him it's okay, they were the lucky ones. She even means it, sometimes, and not it's just for him. She wraps her arms around him and she tells herself it's all for him, every touch, every squeeze of her hand, every hug, every time she presses her lips to his forehead. They'll get through this together, she tells him, just like they did that day. They're getting through it, day by day. He calls her strong; she smiles and says he's wrong about that, she's not really, not _really_ , though he's never quite believed her.

But when he dreams, she wakes. Her own dreams are so much quieter. He never knows. He doesn't need to, and she doesn't need to talk things through the way he does.

She tells herself it's all for him, but every touch is just as much for her sake as it is for his. And maybe more.


End file.
